Naked
by Kalims
Summary: For Caleb, her beauty had never been only skin deep. Fluff warning.


**A.N: Three projects in a two-weeks time's due. Yup, definitely a freaking tough class.**

**I don't remember exactly how I got up with this idea, but it's somehow inspired by The Burning Plain. Somehow.**

**Hope you'd all enjoy :) (Yeah and don't mind the title.)  
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><p><strong>Naked<strong>

Somewhere between the screaming, the kicking, and the shoving, Caleb does manage to escape Hay Lin's clinging to his shirt, already panting as he makes his way hurriedly toward Will's house. He's scampered distances far lengthier than the way from the Silver Dragon to her building, and yet he is sweating–the cold droplets descending from his forehead down his cheeks and from his shoulders lower to his back and chest where he's sure that, against the almost-wool fabric of his shirt, they'd make him smell, later on.

He arrives and strides the stairs two by two, the elevator never gaining his liking. When Caleb reaches the required floor he pauses, only to breathe–just this once breath, thank you–and to get the keys of Will's door from his pocket. God, if he turns out to have forgotten them back in the restaurant he'd–

Cold metal makes contact with his colder skin and clattering sound is made as he pulls them out, sighing. The Polar bears may live to see another day. He moves, somewhat wobbly, toward her apartment door and unlocks it. He's had the key ever since it turned out she's a heavy sleeper and, if she said she's home and nobody answers the door, he has the tendency of vaguely panicking and traveling to Meridian to question the imprisoned Phobos.

Given that such accident may repeat, she has–after much insistence from his side–given him a copy of her key for his and her peace of mind (as well as the poor Prince's).

With a faint thud, the door opens revealing a short entry and an untidy living room; her mother isn't home. But as he walks with gentle footsteps toward Will's bedroom he wonders what would he have done if she were indeed here, and why on Earth hasn't he knocked first? Standing at the doorframe, staring in tight silence at the figure on the bed, his eyes chillingly tracing the stitches on her forehead, on her left cheek, down to the bare split lip on which the red of the dry blood is standing out against her lips' gentler shade of rose, he realizes the answer. He wasn't thinking–he just wanted to get to her as soon as possible, and his mind was too busy asking God not to see her like this.

She is staring at the wall opposite the bed, seemingly bored, somehow distant, definitely unaware of his presence. Great; now that he made sure she's alive, it's time to kill her.

A fit of anger rinses his whole body as he tightened his palms in grips–he was irritated, annoyed, at both her and himself. He should have known something like that would happen when he left for too long.

Not too, _too_ long. He's been less than three weeks away in Meridian, but that is enough for Will to miss him. When it was Cornelia, he never worried about her the slightest. The blonde, albeit kind with her friends, bites hindering heads and chews them for dinner. If she were the one to have the redhead's accident–clashing her bicycle with a motorbike–blood would have been spilled. Certainly not hers. But Will, though at school and in her Leader time she stands as a tough girl, independent and self-sufficient, he knows that by the end of the day she will always need someone to come back to.

And he wasn't there. it upset her, and that motorcycle was the cherry on top of the perfect cake.

He sighs, but does not realize it until a pair of dumbfounded brown orbs makes visual contact with his own green. He greets with a fairly crossed face, not letting concern boil over the delicate features of his frown. She needs to learn.

Will ruefully gulps, guiltily, as if she knows exactly what's on his mind, and then hastily forms a needed smile. Of course he'd give her that look, what else _Caleb_ would possibly do? "Oh, hey Caleb! So nice to see you, how you've been?" It takes him every iota of willpower not to roll his eyes, and instead steps closer in the room and pulls a chair from beside the desk to put it right next to the bed and he sits on it, seeing a scar on her right arm making his chest tighten, but he stubbornly controls himself.

"Are you alright?"

"It wasn't my fault," he almost smiles as she treats his question as an accusation. "I had to slow down 'cause I was crossing the road and cars were passing. _He_ didn't see me. I mean come on; my bike is red–hell, my _hair_ is red. I was freaking standing out like a fly in a soup–_gee_! Next time I'll wear a neon sign, but a different color. Not enough red in the world would've gained the attention of that blind moron." She huffs and groans, proud that she'd actually sounded casual.

"You're in pain?" He easily shakes off her entire explanation and she looks conquered. Sinking further against the pillow behind her back, she refuses to make eye-contact as she shakes her head desolately, his own casualness causing more impact than he'd intended.

He doesn't need to apologize. Caleb doesn't need to correct himself. "I really missed you." He just needs to say the truth and there she is, smiling hesitantly only because she's fighting back the staining blush that would escort the beam.

Now finally, she looks at him. "I missed you too, Caleb. H-How's Elyon?" He leans forward, kissing her temple softly once, twice.

"She's fine, says hey." He says against her hair before he pulls back to his seat. "I'm back here for a few days, wanted to do some activities with you. But it seems you have other plans for us."

"Believe me, _this_ was not my intention." She grumbles faintly.

"That's alright, though. I think I love the idea of teasing you and running off without you being able to do anything about it."

"Caleb, I didn't get crippled. I can still get out of this bed and kick your butt."

"I'd like to see you try," the young man challenges, using the same words Irma uses when Martin suggests holding her hand, though with playfulness instead of intense menace. Will stares at him, her chocolate eyes shimmering with defiance. Making her get out of bed would give him a motive, while ignoring him–a discovered natural talent–would do its job in silencing him as she knew her boyfriend's scarce-to-nonexistent patience. Bah, let him enjoy himself now.

Deliberately displaying lack of interest, she simply stings her tongue out and looks the other way. He chuckles; she is alright.

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><p>For Will's mother not to appear yet, it means more appreciated quality time for them. The couple has shared–other than occasional kisses–their respective news, from the itchy Royal Guard uniform to the redhead's eighty-ninth reason of why frogs are the best. It didn't matter the state they are in, with Will feeling overly slothful in her position in bed and Caleb's growing blisters on his butt from his immobile pose on the chair, they always had fun together.<p>

But now, a conversation has just ended with the teen girl giggling and the guy huffing–one of the only two ways they end conversation, the second being a vice versa. None of them hasty to kill the silence, they both remained contently quiet. The Meridianite's been looking through the window at the sun-setting sky when he feels his girlfriend's eyes on him. He meets her gaze, and catches her giving him a kind of a solicitous look.

He sees her swallowing as she drifts her beautiful eyes to the sheet over her lower section. "I've been thinking."

"Oh no."

"Hilarious," she drawls, but within seconds, all amusement fades. She clears her throat softly, seriously. "I've been thinking about, well, getting a tattoo." She confesses quite uneasily, then she quickly re-locks gazes with Caleb to see his reaction. His face was the same, save for a thoughtful look with little disapproval behind it.

"Never knew you're a tattoo enthusiast."

She moves her feminine shoulders in a shrug. "I'm not," crinkling her eyes, she points with her chin at her right arm. Caleb follows, his gawk falling on the stretched scratch; a line slightly red spread from her hand all the way through her forearm and to her elbow. "The scar's just so ugly."

"No it's not." He knows he should've waited a little longer before he answered, for in the Guardian Leader's opinion any too-quick reply is a sign of dishonesty. But he couldn't be patient not one bit with that saddened, ashamed look she's giving her arm. "It's quite nice, actually."

She ignores his common eccentricity. "The doctor's said that it'll ebb but won't completely heal."

"It-it makes you seem–gosh, what's the word, badass?"

"Seriously, look at it. It distorts the skin of my arm." As if she needs more flaws to add to her low self-esteem. Caleb sighs, slowly raises a finger to her forearm and gently traces the mark. She doesn't flinch, barely grimaces as he starts rubbing it.

"Are _my_ scars ugly?" He asks her simply out of true curiosity. He has his own injuries–deep and stretched, all over his body, and even his face. He has never minded them; actually he barely notices them at all. But if Will thinks they're hideous, that . . . that flabbergasts him, troubles him. "Would you want me to cover my own with tattoos?" He hates those things–the painful needle inducing a stubborn ink into and onto his skin. But if she is dismayed by them, he'd wear them proudly.

"No, no." Her voice is a shocked murmur, but firm, taut with evident frankness. "Yours are different. You have like, for the lack of better words, earned your scars. And not just any scars; those are the marks of a fight, the marks of a cause. You don't want to hide those."

"But yours is too." Caleb protests, finally now as serious as his girlfriend. "You survived a clash and this is the sign of a struggle, one which you've won." He pauses, not used to speaking his mind or emotions. "In my opinion, that makes your scar beautiful."

It makes him more anxious and restless when she doesn't return his sweet words with a flush and his support with a thankful, warm smile. No, what she really does is staring at him, eyes questioning. "I've clashed my cycle with a bike, Caleb." She says in a matter-of-factly tone, the words taking a sort of contemptuous pitch. "Nothing heroic, no fight; just an accident."

"Why are you taking it so seriously?" The Keeper of the Heart arches an eyebrow, scraping with the left hand a scratched cheek, and then she finally chuckles halfheartedly and shakes her head. "I don't really know, I just hate this damned scar." When the worry in his face doesn't disappear, she grins reassuringly. Caleb does not respond to that–he just leans, tangles his fingers with her straight hair which dangled between shoulder-length and midback.

None of them speak for a short while, both not completely over the serious mood even though unlike Caleb, Will's pretending the opposite. "What do you plan on getting?" He doesn't know for sure whether he's humoring her or if he's asking earnestly. Either way, he attentively waits for the answer.

"I have a few choices in my mind." She straightens her neck so when he'd run his fingers through her hair, he'd touch her skin and send all his warmth into her.

"Like a tattoo of the Heart?"

"And steal the Oracle's trademark?" She laughs softly.

"Then it's a frog." She is now grinning widely.

"No, moron. Not a _frog_." She rolls her eyes humorously, then drops her gaze, a gesture she so often does when she's fairly self-conscious of stating her opinion. "A flying bird, maybe?"

"A . . . bird," he echoes, barely swallowing the chuckle.

Will takes his noncommittal attitude as approval. "Yeah, you know, it generally stands for freedom, and birds are mostly feminine; that's a bonus. But I have to chose which bird suits me the most; a raven symbolizes wisdom–yeah, not really _me_. Pigeons represent peace and tranquility and crap, don't they?" She clears her throat, feeling less and less encouraged as her words ricochet so stupidly in her own ears. After a second of bearing Caleb's sustained silence, the redhead sighs. "Forget it."

He's smiling when he finally speaks. "Don't you have anything else that would, um, represent your personality? Or perhaps something that signify an ambition or a motto of yours?" She doesn't even want to think if he's laughing at her or not, because his question clicks validly.

"Well, I do have another thing in mind. It's a writing; _in piedi_. It means 'on my feet' in Italian." She offers but he stops playing with her hair and stares at her puzzled.

"What? Why?"

Will's thought he'd get her, but she sees he doesn't. She considers answering, but her head screams with ache a warning of a tiring, long conversation and silly, emotional memories and fears. She knits her brows. "You're right; it's stupid."

Now their current silence isn't their usual; not easy and warm and relaxing. Caleb could feel his girlfriend agitated, sad, and though he doesn't wholly understand the reason behind her disturbance, the words of love and thoughtfulness keep cramping in his throat, wanting to burst out. He waits only till he slides his hand to her back now and starts rubbing it.

She needs this. She needs his touch and presence all the time, and she puts up with their lack a lot. He should have left for long in the first place. "Will, if you're so positive about this idea, then why don't you tattoo your other scars?"

"What other scars, Caleb? The rest'll go by itself."

He shakes his head. "No they don't. The scars you've gotten all those years will never fade." Maybe he's finally comprehending what she previously meant. "Admit it, you don't even want them to fade, you don't want to forget them. You move on by wearing them, not heavy on your heart, but written in your book."

"Caleb this is different."

"I don't see how."

"It's just a-a stupid accident created by wrong timing and a _sightless _driver." She presses grudgingly.

"It's an experience," he smiles gorgeously at her, his mannish features ever-so tender. "Why cover it? Why not leave it nude like the other scars and do what you do best with its akin; conquer its flaws." Noticing that he's been talking for far too long, far too unlike him, he beams sheepishly. "Or don't."

Of course he doesn't resist when she pulls him into a hug, burying her head in the crock of his neck and her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He holds her far more gently. "I never knew you read poems in Meridian." He could almost hear her smile, or perhaps smirk.

Yes, definitely smirk. "I do whatever reminds me of you," in his honest reply an apology of his absence. "If you can't leave the house, I can visit you every day during my stay."

"Thank you." She's parting, but before he completely let loose, smirking on his own, he whispered in her ear.

"Just wanted to say that the nasty marks on your face are a completely different matter; if you want to tattoo _them_, I won't really argue with you."

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><p>Susan opens the door with her keys, smiling at the sweet and welcome sight of her living room after a long, busy day at work. The second step she takes in, she sees her daughter's boyfriend running out of her room, his face aghast. "Duck!" He screams and she is instinctively on her knees, with him falling right at her feet just before a book flies above them and hits the closed door.<p>

"What was that?" The mother shrieks, but the boy only looks pale, muttering that Will was right about her ability of kicking his butt.


End file.
